


we'll shine so bright

by defcontwo



Category: Marvel (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has spent so many years diving headfirst into the chaos, breathing it in, and focusing it through sheer of determination and a hell of a lot of target practice but there was nothing that she could have done to prepare for this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll shine so bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguineheavens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguineheavens/gifts).



She shouldn't be surprised.

This is the thought that stays with her, turning itself over and over again her mind. She thought she had reached a point when this crazy life of hers would lose the capacity to surprise her, that there was nothing left in this world that could leave her feeling breathless and lost, adrift in the midst of so much chaos.

She has spent so many years diving headfirst into the chaos, breathing it in, and focusing it through sheer of determination and a hell of a lot of target practice but there was nothing that she could have done to prepare for this.

Her not-so-young-anymore group of Avengers have spent the past two hellish weeks chasing after mystical clues off of cryptic messages left by Doctor Strange and tamping down magical catastrophes all over the country.

After a few days, a pattern started to emerge. _Is it just me or is someone helping us along,_ Billy had asked, and Kate had to agree that there was some other power at work. Pieces were falling into place for them easier than they should have and for once, it didn't feel like a trap, it felt right.

In the middle of nowhere North Dakota, fighting tall and proud as if she'd never left them, they find the answer to their questions.

Cassie Lang, standing close enough to touch, mostly happy and whole and _alive_.

The others crowd around them, jostling and talking in circles, but it is all background noise to Kate. Her world has narrowed to a single point: Cassie, looking at Kate as if she's hung the moon in the sky.

"You found me," Cassie says.

 _I'm not who I used to be,_ Kate thinks. _If you knew the things I've done, would you still be looking at me like that?_

And above that, there is the lessening of a grief that she's been living with for the past five years, the grief of what could have been. The loss of something she didn't even know she had. _I didn't know_ , Kate wants to say. _I didn't know how much I loved you until I'd lost you._

The knowledge of this, that she had not realized how much she had wanted until there was nothing left to want but the ghost of a memory, has woken her in the night with images of Cassie dying never fading fast enough from her mind.

"I don't know what to say," Kate says, and regrets it immediately because it is not enough, never enough, and didn't she promise herself that if she got a second chance, she wouldn't waste a second of it.

Cassie shakes her head and smiles before reaching out, snagging Kate's wrist and pulling her in for one of their easy hugs, like so many that they'd shared before - except. Cassie tucks her head into Kate's neck and leans up to press a kiss to the corner of her jaw.

"It's okay. I know."


End file.
